By Mark Fritsch, General Manager
In the short two years since I joined Owatonna Public Utilities I’ve had the opportunity to not only see, but participate in, helping Owatonna grow. How is that occurring and what role is your utility playing?
The retention and recruitment of businesses in Owatonna is a strategic and collaborative effort between the City of Owatonna, Steele County, Owatonna Public Utilities, the Owatonna Business Incubator and the Owatonna Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism (OACCT); we call ourselves Owatonna Partners for Economic Development (OPED). In this memo I want to talk about is why it works.
The key to the growth and retention we are seeing is all about communication and connecting. What I mean by connecting is connecting the right people with the right information at the right time. A strategic goal of the OPED team is to connect people and resources at the appropriate and most impactful point in the process whether it be regarding location of facility/land, funding issues, resource communication or other connections critical to time lines and decision making.
One of our goals in the OPED team is to communicate what we, as a community, have to offer. Our web-site, owatonnadevelopment.com, outlines many aspects along the spectrum of consideration, ranging from listing of properties to comprehensive analysis, such as a recently completed Retail Market Study. From June 1st to August 22nd nearly 1,600 people visited owatonnadevelopment.com and viewed over 9,000 pages.
Working to bring new businesses here and keeping existing businesses highlights the strengths and weaknesses of our state and city to compete with other states and cities. From a utility perspective I’ve learned that one of the top two reasons we compete well is our low utility rates and high electric reliability. It is a key advantage for Owatonna to have a successful municipal utility working for all of us.
Viracon’s decision to stay and expand in Owatonna is one success that took the combined efforts of OPED. Viracon hired a consulting group to evaluate options that included locating in different states. The OPED group along with Minnesota state development personnel met several times with Viracon to understand their needs and build a proposal that resulted in keeping them in Owatonna. Businesses like Viracon have many options. Having OPED gives Owatonna a strong competitive advantage.
One of the fun parts of belonging to this group is being able to meet with local business leaders and tour their facilities. It gives us the ability to know first-hand what is going on and how we can partner to help them improve on their success or overcome challenges.
I’m very proud of the potential this city has to continue to grow and keep businesses successful.